A Dark and Masky Night
by masky61
Summary: A young woman is encountered by Masky and does not get what she expects.


I lay in my bed, alone, and afraid. It didn't make any sense. The slenderman. Or Slender Man, I suppose, if you take it the way Victor Surge meant it. No Slenderman or Slender Man, just The Slender Man, the man who was extraordinarily tall and slender. That's who Victor Surge created him to be. Created him on a computer with Photoshop, I assume. Or something similar. Just a hoax, and everyone knew it. But it spread somehow, and may have become real through our collective knowledge of… him? It? This Slender Man.

The second word spells out for us that the tall, faceless figure is male, but it isn't human. But a male horse or dog or lizard would still be called by the masculine pronoun "he." So, the Slender Man. H's… I don't want to sound stupid. But he's real. Realer than you or I. We exist here, and now. And we continue existing in other heres and nows, but in such a linear fashion. To move to, let's say, Antarctica, we'd have to exist for some amount of time in every point between us and Antarctica. Between where we started and where we finished. Not necessarily in the exact linear path, hat would take us through the earth most likely, especially if we lived in the north, and it wouldn't have to take the straight line. Probably wouldn't be able to. But the shortest distance we could go is a straight line.

And time is even worse. At least in space we have the ability to move to any direction. Some directions more easily of course. It is much more difficult to go up than side or side, or down, providing there isn't something blocking the way. But in time we move forwards, and forward only, at the same rate, aside from thinking of the past or watching things from the past, we can only move forward.

But not… Him. No, he has absolute freedom, residing in every dimension. He is able to move through time as easily as walking. And to move through space is even simpler. No rule as to how he must be at each space in between. No, he's one place and immediately at the next, without need to do any actual traveling. So I was thinking about all of this that night, my covers pulled around me, my blinds closed behind me. I knew how easily he could stand on the other side of that window. I knew my closing of the blinds couldn't change that at all. But I didn't want to see it. Childish, right? If I can't see him, he can't see me. Stupid, is what it is. But it gave me some sense of comfort.

I suppose a windowless room would have made me feel even more secure, even though he could easily enter the room without using a window, door, or hole in the wall. I had the window closed and locked, the blinds closed. Closet door closed. And all of the lights turned off. Why would I keep the lights off? I guess to continue with the "I can't see him, he can't see me" theory. If I can't see anything, I'm safe.

The alarm clock did provide a source of light, however faint. The red numbers held steady. 4:27. The dot in the upper right corner told me that it was AM, though I knew that already, of course. The little bit of light provided allowed me to see the pattern on the bedspread. It was simple, mostly black, with thin white lines criss crossing all over. I pulled it closer, and a chill went up my spine as the wind brushed a branch on my window.

_Just a tree, it's just a tree_ I told myself, and reached for my phone. I typed Pandora on the search screen, and turned on classical music. I set the timer to turn it off after 23 minutes. _I should be asleep by then._ And I must have fallen asleep. I didn't remember hearing the music stop before sleeping, and the music wasn't on when I awoke hours later. The wind had stopped, though I heard rain falling on the roof.

The alarm read 6:03. Too early to get up during winter break. My family was still sleeping, and the sun wasn't up. It wouldn't be up for several hours. Once it came up, I expected to see clouds rather than sun, anyway. I began to calculate how much sleep I'd be getting if I fell asleep now and woke up at around 8. From about five to six was only an hour, and two more from 6 to 8. 3 hours total. I couldn't bring myself to sleep in though, and started to pull my phone from the night stand. I reached out.

The bed stand was level to my bed, and the phone was pushed back maybe 2 inches. I should have felt the hard wood when I reached. Instead I felt something cold, and soft. I pulled my hand back quickly, trying to think of something that could mimic the feel of human flesh. A finger, specifically. It felt like I had touched a finger. I held my breath, and looked away. My eyes started to adjust to the darkness, and with only the light from that alarm clock, the figure became clear.

The mask became apparent first, since it was so white, save for black outlines. The mask itself was rimmed in black. The eyes were darkly outlined as well, and the lips seemed almost feminine, though the figure itself did not. The figure was not much taller than me. I'm not exactly short though, about average for a girl. The figure wore a light jacket, it looked like khaki, but I couldn't tell in the darkness. I tried to work up the courage to say something. To ask this man who he was, why he was in my house. What was with the mask?

But he was holding up his hand to his face, the one that I touched on accident. He examined it, as if I had somehow contaminated his finger, or as if he was realizing he had fingers for the first time. I let out a shaky breath, and shifted slightly. I had still been resting one elbow to reach for my phone. I didn't know what to do.

Calling 911 wasn't possible, as he stood closer to my phone than I did. I couldn't get to it in time. I could scream, wake up my parents, but what if he killed me? I had weapons. A gun even, but it was locked in my safe on the other side of the room. I was vulnerable. I was alone, my hair uncombed (not that it mattered, but combed hair does make me feel more prepared), wearing a tank top and long baggy pj pants. No shoes or socks to run away. I didn't dare try and get out the window. I'm not agile enough, and I suspected the ground was soaked from the downpour.

So I sat, waiting. For anything. I didn't know if the man would try and murder me, or worse. If he would take something, leave. I didn't know if he would just stand there. I tried to shift myself into a more defensive position without alerting him, waking him from the sort of trance he seemed to be in, turning his hand and tilting his head curiously. I tried to sit up, inch by inch, and pull my feet closer to me so that I could jump up if I needed to.

I had barely begun this process when he dropped his hand and looked at me. I was frightened, and sat up the rest of the way, banging my head on the head board. I allowed myself to whimper, and regretted it when he took a step forward. The masked man was nearly against the bed. He took the hand he had been so fascinated with just a moment before and reached out to me. I tried to scoot away, but knew it was pointless. I would only be backing myself into a corner, and what good would that be?

He used the hand to touch my head where I had hit it. Gently, without causing more pain, he felt the bump. I tried to hold in the tears that I had, not from the pain, but from the fear. It was like when I fell down the stairs as a kid. I didn't get hurt at all, but the shock made me cry. I held my breath and closed my eyes tightly, willing away the man.

Not so much the man, but the strangeness. I was not as afraid. I didn't think he could hurt me. Well, I knew he could. He looked strong, stronger and larger than me. But I felt he wouldn't. I almost shook my head, telling myself I was stupid and naïve for thinking so. I worried that I was just attracted to the whole mystery factor. The thrill. "There's a strange man in my bedroom. Why, anything could happen," kind of thing. I had just started watching Doctor Who, it was the first quote that came to mind.

His hand remained, and when I gathered the courage to look up at him, the hand slipped down the side of my face, and remained on my cheek. It was still cold, but not as bad as it had been at first. He looked at me in the eye, and raised a finger to his lips. I can't explain what happened next. I don't know if it was because of the lack of sleep, or the strangeness of it all but I pushed myself up, so that I was on my knees on the bed, eye level with the man. I put my hand on his face, cupping it. He flinched, and took his hand off of my face, securing the mask on his.

"No," I whispered. That wasn't my plan. I hadn't even though of taking off the mask, to be honest. I let him hold on the mask, and I put my hand on top of his I leaned in, and kissed the dark black lips drawn on the mask. I guess I expected it to be different. More real, less plastic. My lips tasted like ink afterwards. I checked later though, and there was no black left on my skin.

The man turned away from me and knelt down. He stood up after a moment, turning around and producing a strip of cloth. He held one end in each hand. He leaned in and whispered, in two short breaths, as if it caused him pain, "Trust… Me?" I nodded yes.

He was close enough that I could see his eyes under the mask. They were dark. I had always liked dark eyes better than blue. Mine were blue. His hair was dark too. Dark and not too short. My first boyfriend, well, my only boyfriend, had always cut his too short. This man's hair was a few inches long. He took the cloth and tied it over my eyes. Not too tightly as to hurt me, but secure enough not to fall off.

I heard him wrestling with something, and then the clunk of plastic hitting the floor. I held my breath, and bit my lip. Then I stopped biting it, in case he was going to do what I though he was going to do. I suppressed my smile, waiting for him to lean in and kiss me. His lips warm from being contained in the mask, his hair brushing my forehead.

But nothing came. Nothing ever came. I don't remember falling back asleep, I just remember waking up. My mother was calling my name loudly, and I sat up. I had been sleeping sideways, my head against the wall. I pulled off the cloth, and threw it under the bed. My mom walked in a moment later. "Janet?" She asked. "I was worried, you usually don't sleep in his long." I glanced at the clock. Just after noon. "What's this?" My mom knelt down and came back up with a mask. "Oh, um, just something a friend gave me," I told her. Not quite a lie.


End file.
